


Scatter the Ashes and Do Not Forget

by shinyivyleaves



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Funerals, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Team as Family, spoilers for episode 26
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 00:25:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15327690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyivyleaves/pseuds/shinyivyleaves
Summary: They do not bury him.





	Scatter the Ashes and Do Not Forget

They do not bury him.

It’s Beau who suggests it. She doesn’t think he would want to be buried, she says, considering his past experience with graves. Yasha agrees; they should leave no chance that Molly’s fears would be realized and someone else would wake up in his body. So they will not bury him, they decide. But they also cannot just leave him.

They take him out to an open field, far from the road and prying eyes. A storm rumbles in the distant but the sky above them is still clear, the full moon glowing above them in a sea of constellations. A pyre is built. Jester lines it with drawings of him, some from when he was alive and some recent, both beautiful and silly. Yasha weaves flowers among the branches and logs, and leaves the folded silk that Molly had given her in Hupperdook on his chest. Nott scatters alcohol on the kindling, the finest she could find, and offers the rest to her teammates, because Molly would have wanted a celebration.

Caleb lights the torch with his magic. Yasha touches it to the pyre. Beau sets off some fireworks, just to add some color and flair to the mix, and Fjord offers a few words, a sailor’s blessing to the departed. Arms around each other the Mighty Nein stands back to watch.

Mollymauk Tealeaf burns.

They keep vigil until the flames burn low. There are no tears shed; the time for that has long since past, when their attempts to call him back to life were met with silence. Instead they hold the image of this ridiculous man in their memories and resolve to do as he did, to leave each town a little bit better than they found it as they move forward.

The storm rumbles closer as the fire finally burns itself away. The Mighty Nein moves in and gathers the ashes of their friend into vials and pouches. They create a small campfire and offer one last toast to the star that only had two years but still burned so brightly. A burst of lightning accompanies their cheer.

The road greets them in the morning. All packed up, they keep the memory of their friend close and they do not look back. There are still jobs to do, people to help, paths they have not yet travelled. And everywhere they go they scatter a tiny bit of the ashes of Mollymauk Tealeaf, so that he might see the world with them, that a piece of him might remain across the land he only got to know for two short, glorious years.

They mourn. They move on. They do not forget. And with his memory ever by their side, they change the world.


End file.
